This statement was made 3 years ago by Professor John Walker and CEO of Secure Bastion Ltd at the e-Crime Congress. John and a small number of other security professionals were predicting darker things to come. But at the time, John and his friends were scoffed at and rejected for making such predictions, and told that cyber crime was in fact declining.

Now take a look at the current state of cyber crime. Data breaches on companies of all sizes are now a regular occurrence, phishing schemes are on the rise and even tensions between countries are building because of criminal activities over the Internet. Cybercrime is estimated to cost the global economy $388 billion, which is $100 billion more than the global black market.

If we’d have listened to John Walker back in 2009, would we be in the state that we are in today? Probably not. By 2012 we might have reached a global solution to fighting cyber crime and information would be made more freely available on how to beat it.

We are only now seeing the emergence of a united approach to data breaches throughout Europe. So how long will it take to fight a united approach globally? Four, five more years? Can the economy wait that long?

It’s all well and good to look back on the past and discuss what we should have done, but we need to take steps to prevent what is happening now and for the future. Protect your business against cyber threats today.